


Serve Him in Death

by angesradieux



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jealousy, Obsession, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29134152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angesradieux/pseuds/angesradieux
Summary: Floki had to kill the priest. Now that he has, he sits beside the body and tells it so.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 21
Collections: Darkfic_TW Valentines Challenge 2021





	Serve Him in Death

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: The challenge was to write a dark confession of love. So here's a short, little fic expanding on Floki's motivation for killing Athelstan. Hope you like it, as always feedback is very much appreciated!
> 
> ~Anges

The scent of blood hangs thick in the air, snuffing out the odor of candles that still burn, though they will never again illuminate a Christian’s prayers. The feral snarl has faded from Floki’s face, the fire of his rage doused by the slick of blood on his axe. The priest is dead and the gods satisfied.

He draws in a deep breath, his expression quite serene as he crouches beside the cooling body. He’d fallen onto his side when Floki struck, and the boatbuilder grabs his shoulder and turns him onto his back. Blue eyes stare at the roof, sightless. The gaping wound in the back of his head no longer exposed, the priest looks quite peaceful in death.

Floki traces a hand across the priest’s brow almost tenderly, smoothing his dark hair. “I had to do it.” His lips twist as he folds his legs beneath him, sitting beside his victim. “You could have died with honor, all those years ago,” he muses. “Were you a little less of a coward. Instead, we lost Leif and kept you.” He scoffs. How much better off would they all have been had the priest proven himself a worthy sacrifice, long before he managed to dig his Christian claws into Ragnar’s heart? Floki regrets only that it has taken him so long to right that wrong.

“You poisoned him. I still don’t know why he listened to you.”

His brow knits at the sight of the cross hung around the dead man’s neck. “The rope suited you better.” Floki hadn’t minded the priest so much in those early days, leashed like livestock. The way a slave ought to be. He’d been a tool, then. Those guileless eyes wide with naivety and fear, a weak and simple man who Ragnar might ply with drink to extract information before leading the Vikings to plunder and desecrate another Christian church.

Floki had quite liked him then. At least, he’d liked what the little priest could do for them. He’d also not minded him while he’d kept his head down, performing the duties of a servant quietly and keeping out of the way. Then, he’d known where he belonged.

“The gods brought you here to serve. You’d have done better to mind your place.”

He couldn’t pinpoint when it happened, exactly. But somewhere along the way, the priest’s purpose had become something more than to serve. He’d latched on like a tick and become entirely too much to Ragnar.

“But now you’ve made me hurt him.”

The fury is back in his eyes as they flicker in the dying light of the candles. He wanted all the best for Ragnar—he always had. He’d stood by him through everything. Built the boat for his first, mad quest for lands to the west and sailed with him time and time again. Floki welcomed Ragnar’s family—even the priest—to hide in his home while Ragnar lay injured. Delivered the challenge to Haradlson, which had made Ragnar earl. And then later thwarted Horik’s plans so that Ragnar might be crowned king.

The fame and the riches are Ragnars. But behind it all is Floki. His boats, his healing, his loyalty. He’d never minded—Ragnar’s success has always been reward enough. And yet the priest had tainted it with his useless, dead Christ, tempting Ragnar away from the truth of their gods.

Floki never wanted to harm Ragnar. And yet now he has. He hates the priest for that perhaps more than anything else.

“He will grieve your death, you know as well as I.” Ragnar will suffer for the absence of the priest as a man suffers the loss of a damaged limb, severed to stop the spread of infection to the rest of the body. “But in the end, he will be stronger for it. He’ll see that, one day.” The corners of his eyes crinkle in malicious glee. “And then? Then I shall tell him, and he will thank me for it.” All will be made clear, once the passing of time has cured Ragnar of the Christian plague.

“You were foolish, priest. You cast your ring away, but I? Everything I do I have always done for love of him. Always. And now he will see.” He leans forward, as if to tell a secret. His lips nearly brush the priest’s ear as he hisses, “I have loved him better than you ever could.”

With a final sneer, he stands and snuffs the candles. Floki casts one more disdainful glance at the body. “This will improve him. Perhaps it is in death that you may yet serve him, the way you should have done in life.”

Floki leaves the small house cold and dark, just as he hopes the priest will find his eternity in Hel.


End file.
